Thank you @mariannewest for another fabulous #freewrite challenge. And its the weekend! Hurrah for the weekend freewrite challenge! This challenge involves three prompts. So each part of the story is informed by the next prompt.
To learn more and take part visit @mariannewest/weekend-freewrite-jan-13-2018-part-1-the-first-sentence
If you don't know what a freewrite is visit @mariannewest, here is a link to the introduction post: @mariannewest/writers-or-wanna-be-writers-wanted-be-free-freewrite
The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating. But he wasn't called 'honest John' for nothing, so he failed miserably.
Cathy was exasperated. She had given him so much help and was even prepared to help him cheat, just to make sure he stayed on the course.
He had so much going on in his life, right now, that there was no way John could get the hours in studying. His mother was dying, his brother, split up from his wife was facing bankruptcy and the loss of his house, and John himself, fighting his self doubt and depression every day.
Cathy sighed. What else could she do?
She waited at the cafe, for John. Sipping her coffee, and looking at the other customers, and people who rushed past the window trying to beat the wind and the rain. He was late, of course. She knew that he would arrive out of breath and full of apologies.
She also knew that the reason he was late would be because he was trying to help someone else get out of a difficult situation.
...
"'There you go, making up lies again.' That is what they told me," John said as he collapsed into the chair opposite Cathy.
It was his sisters again. They were constantly on his back, it seemed. He was doing his best to help his mother die with dignity, but they were trying to hang on to her. They didn't want to believe the doctors.
"She's ninety three, for heavens sake," John said, sipping the coffee, Cathy had fetched from the counter. "She is tired, she has had enough."
But the sisters, who had taken a back seat over their mothers care for the last ten years, were suddenly wanting to make the decisions.
"They don't want her to be D.N.R." he said. "If her heart stops naturally, surely that is a better, more dignified way of going, then being hooked up to machines for the next however many months or years until she dies anyway."
He sighed, and took another sip. "Anyway," he said, brightly. "How are you?" Cathy looked at John's tired face.
...
"Well," Cathy began.
And then she stopped. Her problems seemed so trivial in comparison to John's. He looked at her, that expression of genuine concern. He was such a nice bloke. She knew she was in love with him, and she knew that he had too much on his plate to be thinking about a relationship right now.
Especially after Alison.
John and Alison had been going out for almost two years. John was in love and had told Cathy he was going to propose. But the best thing about John, was the thing that Alison couldn't bear. His kindness and his thoughtfulness to others. She thought every time he spoke with another person (man, or woman) that he was betraying her.
She hid it pretty well, to begin with. But she soon started asking lots of questions and following him, checking his phone.
The last straw was when she tampered with the breaks on Cathy's Honda.
Cathy adjusted the break on her wheelchair, and smiled at John.
"Oh, I'm fine, John. Really, I am."
...
The picture is of yesterday mornings sunrise on beautiful clouds (this morning it is grey, and wet). I wrote the story using http://www.themostdangerouswritingapp.com/, one prompt at a time, 5 minutes each.